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Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space DC released

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Joined 2013-03-14

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So this one has finally been released:
http://www.mckracken.net/

Personally I don’t think the game “feels” like a Zak McKracken game. It’s a blody good effort all in all, and as a free game it’s just amazing, but the writing itself feels odd and the humour just doesn’t do it for me. Also there’s a lot of language in the game that I just don’t associate Zak McKracken, like cursing and what not.

I don’t know if there’s something that’s been lost from translating the original text from german to english, but the dialogue is pretty clunky and I think some jokes have been translated verbatim from german to english, which breaks them pretty badly. Like one basic line that Zak uses to inform that something can’t be done, that goes something like “I have cows at home that need milking”, which just doesn’t work.

     
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How come Disney haven’t shut them down? Do they have an agreement with them?

     
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Welp, that was quite the download. So curious about this.

     
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Yeah, it’s quite a sizeable download, but it has pretty high production values for a free game. I’d say it trumps over many commercial indie titles.

     
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I can’t get it to work. See my request for help here: Zak McKracken BTaS download issues   Embarassed

     

Life is too short to drink bad wine…

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tomimt - 15 May 2015 11:11 AM

Yeah, it’s quite a sizeable download, but it has pretty high production values for a free game. I’d say it trumps over many commercial indie titles.

You weren’t kidding! Only literally had 30 seconds to walk around in it before I had to quit but, yeah, great production values. I wonder how they monetized this thing, it really is something to see a game at this level of polish be an absolutely free download.

     

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I’ve tried around 3 hours before I dropped it; it is certainly more polished than other popular fan works (especially with regard to cutscenes), but, after the intro showed some minor premise, both the missed humour, some abysmal puzzle (you can’t seriously pretend you can’t pick an item from a drawer without a lamp?), clunky interface and the rehashed scenarios ruined it for me.
I would have preferred them going the opposite way, using less production values, but more creative effort; Forge (but even BS2.5, which I still didn’t like much, but was playable at least) did a much better job at balancing respect for the source material and introducing ideas in a similar vein.

     
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True, on many places it did feel like the writer didn’t really know Zak McKracken that well. Or maybe it’s just the german sense of humour, that doesn’t fit the character well.

     
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Ok so this game is REALLY acting weird on me now.

I had downloaded it at work and never even left the first room.

Played it at home for couple of hours.

Now I’m firing it up at work again and… I’m in the room I got up to at home? Except some of the puzzles I’d completed at home I hadn’t yet in this.

And then this happened:

Now I’m really starting to fear abduction’s imminent.

     
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I didn’t stumble upon that bug, but on an another location I walked out the door and headed towards another exit just only to magically teleport coming out from the previous door again.

Overall I didn’t notice anything gamebreaking though, just glitches.

     

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Joined 2013-07-07

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And here was me thinking this would get lavish praise.

I loved it. And it seemed to mimic the Zak vibe well, though I have not played the original in a while.

My criticisms are it sometimes borrows Lucasarts’s ideas too heavily [the creators appear to love Monkey Island 3] and it gets very puzzle intensive later on. I would have preferred better balance between puzzle/plot.

Also it seems to fall into the Riddle of Master Lu trap of having the player fly back and forth around the globe to retrieve an insignificant item for one location. 5000km flight for a pint of milk anyone?

But the backgrounds look nice, voice acting is good and it feels like a proper retail game. Lots of classic Zak moments too.

     
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BlackJack - 19 May 2015 10:32 PM

My criticisms are it sometimes borrows Lucasarts’s ideas too heavily [the creators appear to love Monkey Island 3]

I think you’ll find a majority of indie games paying heavy visual tribute to either Lucas or Sierra, but mainly Lucas. It’s almost become a staple of the genre, and I personally enjoy all the nods to them Laughing

     

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I was surprised to find a character taken verbatim from MI3. But I liked how they kept the airport and plane sequences.

     

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Hey guys,
I’m marvel from the developers group that created this game. Smile We’re glad that you play the game and we get many many great e-mails and posts about it.

Please consider that this is a game created by fans, without a budget and no AAA production. Wink When we started this project, most of us have been schoolchildren or students. When I wrote this story (around 2002) I was heavily influenced by all of the classic adventure games (mostly Lucas Arts). Our approach was to modernize Zak McKracken, make him cooler and even more funny. You might know that LucasArts did something similar in Day of the Tentacle. Smile

I wonder about this bug, Mr Underhill mentioned:

Mr Underhill - 19 May 2015 10:24 AM

Now I’m firing it up at work again and… I’m in the room I got up to at home? Except some of the puzzles I’d completed at home I hadn’t yet in this.

Can you tell me exactly what you did to make this happen? Haven’t seen something like this before Wink Did you load an “old” savegame or something?

Best,
Marvel

 

     

Total Posts: 42

Joined 2013-07-07

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Yowza just noticed the game is set in 2009, 12 years after the first Zak. Waiting to see if there’s a good plot explanation for this.

I have also run into a bug where the inventory disappears at times. But no real biggie.

     

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Joined 2005-05-09

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2009? Where did he/she saw this? Smile

     

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